The controversy surrounding this week’s Lambeth Conference will be seen by some not simply as in-house fighting within the Anglican Communion, but as the final nail in the coffin of Christendom. For some, the ongoing debate over homosexuality marks a divergence between secular and biblical worldviews that cannot easily be reconciled.

Teresa Clarke finally passed her driving test this week – after 27 years. It was the thirteenth test she had taken, after a total of 450 hours of tuition, at a cost of £15,000. Naturally, she was delighted; or, as her relieved driving instructor put it, ‘she went absolutely bananas.’ Well, wouldn’t you, after 27 years?

Truth is that many of us would have given up long before. However, despite all the setbacks she encountered, Mrs Clarke insists that she, ‘never wanted to give up learning to drive.’ The primary reason why her success is newsworthy is because such perseverance is a rare thing in our ‘instant society’.

Being a policeman is not an easy task. Take the other night, for example; the PC visiting the youth group I help out with had the unenviable task of giving a talk on police policy for stopping and searching young people. A fairly routine PR exercise for the boys in blue, but in this instance the speaker knew not only that many of the youths had first hand experience of being stopped and searched, but also that it was he who had carried out those searches.

Narnia returns to the big screen this week as Prince Caspian opens in cinemas nationwide, a week after hitting the very, very big screen of the O2 arena at its UK premiere. The new film sees the Pevensie children – Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy – summoned back to Narnia by the eponymous hero, who is rightful heir to its throne. But it is an occupied and embattled Narnia to which they return. True Narnians are now a persecuted minority, and the murderous usurper, Miraz, rules by fear, division and violence. Cue lots of CGI, fantastical violence, elaborate sets and beautiful scenery; together with some subtle details that will please die-hard fans of the book.

‘Wrraaaarrggghh! Hulk smash!’ Fan boys have to wait an hour-and-a-half into the new film, The Incredible Hulk, to hear those two, well, nearly three, immortal words roared out by the anything but jolly green giant, but it’s certainly worth the wait. It comes in a smack-down between our verdant-skinned hero and his devastatingly powerful, and equally emerald mutant opposite, The Abomination.

The reason we talk about having the ‘courage of our convictions’ is because there are consequences that flow from those convictions – and not all of them happy ones.

This week, in an interview with The Times, George Bush reflected on his presidency and expressed regret that the rhetoric he used in regard to the Iraq war has created a legacy for him as ‘a guy really anxious for war.’ Had he known back then what he knows now, about the consequences of his language, he would have taken a different tone.

There is little that we like better, it seems, than settling down to a cosy murder.

A quick body count suggests that this is how many of us unwind – this week alone we can tune into over forty-five hours of detective drama on terrestrial television. Six of the current top ten bestselling hardbacks, and four of the top ten paperbacks, are concerned with one form of crime or another.

But why our continued attraction to, and fascination with, the ever growing corpus of the corpse? After all, despite infinite variety in locations, characters, victims, and modes of dispatch, the essential plot remains the same each time. Regardless of whether it is Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, or Inspectors Morse or Barnaby on the case, and of whatever particular crime is committed, the culprit will eventually – and inevitably – be discovered.

The world of detective fiction is a curious blend of the horrific and the fantastic. It’s a world where violence can break out at any time, and where anyone, even the least expected (perhaps especially the least expected), may have premeditated murder. Interestingly, though, it’s also a world that displays a strange form of optimism; perhaps we could even characterise it as hope. As the acclaimed crime writer, P.D. James, once said, ‘what the detective story is about is not murder but the restoration of order’. The deep-seated hope that these narratives continue to articulate is that truth cannot be suppressed, that evil will be thwarted, and that things happen for a reason, a reason that, even if not always understood, can at least be explained.